Hello and thank you for opening this week’s Wheel Talk Newsletter. We’re well and truly into Worlds Week with a few great races down and a few still to go. Grace Brown finally scored that elusive rainbow jersey, topping off a dream final season for the Australian legend, but she’s not done yet. Some people on the podcast this week think she can do the double, but what takeaways can we really carry from the time trial into the road race?
Wheel Talk
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SD Worx-Protime’s 2025 team is taking shape with the recent additions of Skylar Schneider and Julia Kopecký.
The Dutch team already announced Marta Lach would join, and of course, we all know about the return of Anna van der Breggen.
(Julia) Kopecký joins the team after two years with AG Insurance-Soudal’s U23 team, where she claimed titles at her home Tour de Feminin and the Czech Republic national championships time trial. At 20 she is a development prospect for the team, someone they can fit into multiple roles to suss out where she is best. She has some experience in cyclocross and races both competitively.
Schneider was already a member of the Dutch team back in 2020. She signed for Boels-Dolmans in 2018 at the age of 20 and spent three years on the team before she stepped down to L39ION of LA, the primarily criterium-focused team in the United States. For the last four years, she’s been part of a dominant team in the crit scene stateside, but the SD Worx-Protime door was always open to her. She has a good relationship with team management and is an incredible talent. While on Boels-Dolmans she had some minor wins and was part of some top results for teammates, but after Le Samyn in March of 2020 she didn’t race again for the team (the COVID-19 year, when racing shut down mid-March and restarted mid-summer).
Back in the USA Schneider regained confidence that can understandably falter in the European peloton by winning the Joe Martin Stage Race in 2021, along with a list of criteriums. She travelled over to Europe with the national team to race over the years and got a few wins including a national-level race in the Netherlands. Last year she won the Pan-American championship road race.
Schneider’s role on the team is probably that of domestique, but as a talented sprinter, she can also get involved in Lorena Wiebes’ lead-out train. With (Lotte) Kopecky becoming more of a GC rider, there will be a gap in that train that Schneider will be able to fill.
So now we know three new riders to the team who can perform a few roles within the structure, and Van der Breggen who will be a leader most of the time. We don’t know the fate of Elena Cecchini, Lonneke Uneken or Chantal van den Broek-Blaak. Marlen Reusser has long been rumoured to be leaving the team for Movistar, Christine Majerus is retiring, Niamh Fisher-Black is headed to Lidl-Trek and Demi Vollering is headed … somewhere. With the renewals of Marie Schreiber, Mischa Bredewold, Barbara Guarischi, Kopecky, and Wiebes, plus Blanka Vas and Femk Gerritse already under contract there are 12 riders signed for 2025.
For the last two seasons, the team had 16 riders; in 2022 they had only 14, but with more demands on teams due to the higher level of races, and the volume of racing, we could assume there are still at least four announcements coming (some might be renewals).
Racing continues …
… all week in Zurich at the World Championships!
I will have a full written preview including course breakdown and contenders for Saturday’s Elite Women’s Road Race up on the site later this week, so stay tuned for that. The U23 women will compete with the elites for the final time (the first-ever stand-alone U23 women’s road race will be next year in Rwanda) but the Junior women have their own races. First, the time trial on Tuesday, then the road race on Thursday, September 26th at 10:00 CET.
The Junior road race starts at the same location as the Elite and U23 women, in Uster just east of Zurich. They complete a lap around Lake Greifensee before heading towards Zurich for one lap of a hilly parcourse. In total, they will race 73.6 km.
The mixed relay takes place on Wednesday, September 25th at 14:00 CET and it’s worth tuning in for. There are a bunch of top women lining up for their nations including Elisa Longo Borghini, who sat out the time trial over the weekend, for Italy.
In addition to the cycling events, para-cycling events are going on all week long so there is really something to follow at all hours!
Wheel Talk Podcast
As you might imagine, Gracie, Loren and I were pretty excited to record this week’s podcast. Not only did we get to talk about Grace’s dream season we also chatted about Antonia Niedermaier’s fantastic performance, Demi Vollering’s great day, and more. We also previewed the road race including a little input from Elise Chabbey who I talked with late last week for a future episode.
Let’s Discuss …
Lotte Kopecky and the curse of the rainbow jersey.
One of the older superstitions, or quirky things, about cycling is the famous curse of the rainbow jersey, where a rider wins the World Championships at the end of one season only to have bad luck, illness, or just bad legs the following year while they are wearing rainbows. Historically, it seems like the curse applies more to men than women. In recent years wearers of the jersey have gone on to have phenomenal seasons. Think Elisa Balsamo’s first season with Trek-Segafredo in 2022 after winning in 2021. She started that year with a win at Setmana Valenciana and proceeded to win Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Brugge-De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem back-to-back.
There is no doubt that Kopecky did the jersey proud this year. Her Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift victory alone would have been enough, but she won Strade Bianche, UAE Tour, multiple stages of the Tour of Britain – the list is long. She transformed as a rider and the rainbow jersey was on display climbing mountains with the best, taking on sprinters, and in general, rocking the cycling world.
A little over a year later, Kopecky is favoured to take the jersey again. She is the World Champion, leading the WorldTour standings, and her future is bright.
While in rainbows both Anna van der Breggen and Annemiek van Vleuten shined. As far back as Lizzie Deignan in 2016 and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot in 2015, rainbow jersey wearers have been some of the strongest in the peloton. The only outlier is Amalie Dideriksen who won the 2016 Worlds in 2016 in Doha. But even in 2017, the Dane notched three individual victories including Ronde van Drenthe.
The curse didn’t touch Kopecky, and if we look at the list of favourites for Saturday’s race it likely won’t affect the winner’s 2025 season. So is it time we deemed the curse invalid?
A picture worth a couple of words
On Tuesday Cat Ferguson continued her impressive 2024 with a win in the Junior Worlds ITT, ahead of future Visma-Lease a Bike riders Viktória Chladonová and Imogen Wolff.
Ferguson is signed for Movistar for the 2025 season but the British rider has already pulled on their jersey. In fact, she won the first of two stages of the AG Tour de la Semois three days before her time trial in Zurich.
Taylor Swift corner
Over the years there have been some pretty ridiculous conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift. Some around politics, like last year when it was going around she was a government psyop. There are quite a few around her relationships with Travis Kelce like that she was only dating Kelce to throw him off his game so the Eagles would win the Superbowl.
There was once a theory that Swift didn’t have a belly button because she only ever wore high-rise bottoms. This was finally debunked in 2015 during the original 1989 Era. She broke the story by posting a vacation photo alongside the Haim sisters, longtime friends of Swift’s who have collaborated with Swift on her own album Evermore in “No Body, No Crime” and on HAIM’s bonus version of “Gasoline” from their album Women In Music Pt. III. Swift has referred to herself as the fourth Haim sister and together they have had some hilarious moments. They even made an appearance in Swift’s “Bejewelled” music video.
When Swift was gearing up to return to the stage for her Eras Tour she made two surprise appearances at gigs for other artists. One was The 1975 when she played “Anti-Hero” and the band’s song “The City” (hilariously our very own Matilda Price happened to be there that night), and the other was when HAIM played at the O2 in London.
Until next time!
Thanks for reading! I’ll be back next week, in the meantime, enjoy the Worlds!
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